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Thursday, April 6, 2017

What Should Be Guiding Our Foreign Policy Now?

1. Take money out of the bottom line of human relations. Replace it instead with the notion of effort guided by balanced compassion; taking a big step in that direction by declaring that we will move away from the economics of scarcity by getting rid of Capitalism.

In doing this, however, we must also make it clear that we will not just act unilaterally in a way that would pull the rug out from under the economies of other nations by our change of economic operating systems; which is no more than to say that we will negotiate repayment of all of our financial obligations, stipulating only that it would be by means other than currencies (as in food exports, energy exports, or outright finished products, etc, offered as alternatives). Seeking also to provide bulk consumption via barter (some of the basic components we will still need) wherever possible so as to not leave too many immediate consumptive voids which might also disrupt the economies of others.

2. We must accept the role of leadership in the world not only because we inherited it after WW 2, but also because we are born and bred, collaborators, and frontier people. Collaborators in the sense that we welcomed all comers, ready to work hard individually, and as a team; and frontier people to this day because we've been workin on the uncharted territory of a new kind of social organization (as well as new continent) for several centuries now: the rule of law under collective majority consensus of what is important, and what we should do to confront those priorities (which is why we've always valued the freedom to know the truth).

At the risk of stating the obvious, however, the notion of frontier is broadening as never before. Now it must move beyond the merely physical bounds of any one continent, or the needs of any one group of people. The new frontier is finding the way to move beyond our ignorant, fearful, tribal ways so that we can step off of the planet and go where our beliefs, and dreams, demand of us to go; all in our separate, or collective ways. And then, while we're at it we can also address the other new frontiers of thought and ability that an avalanche of new knowledge has provided us with.

3. We must make all fossil fuels to be worth far less than the price of extraction, and too expensive for any further consumption. We must do this by fostering every form of solar power we can via wind and solar collectors, on the one hand, and by taxing the consumption of fossil fuels on the other (you can levy punitive measures by other means than money -- as in demanding compensatory commitments of either other resources, or actual applications of work effort by the supporting populations). And we must do these fostering efforts as a part of cooperative bridge building with those who we are now in direct competition for in finding and extracting new fuels.

4. Restate very clearly the things we will fight for, and the things we will refrain from fight for again.

What we will fight for:
a. The right of the individual to make his, or her, own choices.
b. The right of people to believe what they want to believe.
c. The right of people to live wherever they might be accepted, or to create a new space for themselves to congregate as a new, sovereign group.
d. The right of access to the basic needs of life, both physical and emotional, with certain minimums provided by default.
e. The right of unfettered access to information (things must alway be at least discoverable anywhere you live), to the greatest degree possible, short of the specific security requirements of a sovereign state to conduct its affairs in the best interests of its people.

What we must stop fighting for:
If something is repugnant, or seemingly blasphemous, it must be tolerated if the individuals involved have it in their power to leave the situation when they want to (which, if we had a truly effective world transportation utility, run by the United Nations, and operated on a means tested way, people would be able to move away, and not risk terrible deprivation, or death, to do it).

The fact of the matter is that we must "fight no more for ever" (I like to focus more on Chief Seattle, than Chief Joseph when I hear that quote) when it comes to ideologies, or religions. Life is too fragile, and interconnected, to do anything less.

5. We must take leadership in the creation of new living space for all displaced peoples, not only because of our checkered past with native people (and their resources), but because it is in our self interest to do this. How many times do we need to see the cycle of instability creating desperate people, who then create the chaos of doing desperate things, to see this?

And in taking this leadership in creating new living space we must also use it to build bridges of cooperation with those whom we've been in competition with in other areas because it is in their interest as well.

This is why getting started on rapidly produced, sea based support structures is so important. For not only does it provide work here, it fits in with both liquid hydrogen production at sea with Yen Tornado turbines, and follow on floating cities which could both use the same, common support structure technology.

6. Isolate the leadership of rogue nations with ever more coordinated efforts of trade restrictions, while at the same time seeking to rescue those who leave whatever repression, or subjugation, such leaders seek to inflict on their people. All of which we could a better job of if a. we weren't standing to profit by it in any way. b. We were already starting to build bridges of cooperation as mentioned above, and c. We'd have the infrastructure in place to start cranking out new living space on a colossal new scale.

7. Be prepared to intervene militarily, along with our global partners, if rogue states violate basic human rights as already defined, and keep their people prisoner as well; or where our own sovereign interests are directly challenged by force against us.

About Me

I am retired now, but I used to make my living as a Systems Analyst\Developer.

As my real passion has always been ideas, writing, reading, social change and music I am devoting myself to all of these. The primary focus, however is on social change.

It is my firm belief that Capitalism is obsolete. It has been rendered so because of electrified information systems. Not only do these make human skill as a commodity absurd, they also turn information into money, and money into information. At the very least, this reality makes representational Democracy virtually impossible because it can longer move freely. As a commodity it is necessarily subject to the net gain requirement in any exchange. As such information flow is seldom conducted for the benefit of the receiver.